


Paradigm

by Teigh



Series: Pedestrian Wolves [2]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-29
Updated: 2008-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:27:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teigh/pseuds/Teigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's like reading a comic panel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paradigm

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: This describes September 11 in NYC.
> 
> The second of five character studies for the Pedestrian Wolves 'Verse.

Gerard dreams about the ferry ride more than he will ever admit.

It’s a sunny day, the bite of early September riding the air. The surrounding water reflects the grey-white atmosphere, an iron mirror Gerard can’t help but ignore as he huddles behind a paper coffee cup and the muted tint of his sunglasses. Ferry motion alone whips his hair back from his face. There’s no way the constant wind rush can shake free the temple throb of last night’s hangover or the deeper twist of dark, growling in him.

Gerard’s no fool – he’s well aware of the contrary hunch of his shoulders against the relentless promise of this autumn day. But he can’t seem to shake his growing discontent. It has teeth, claws, brushed furred flanks along his nocturnal fancies with frightening regularity. Every day he travels to the City, grasps a multitude of tools –lead and ink and bright color- and lets his hands transcribe someone else’s dreams onto the page. Over and over, the shift between pen and passage repeats.

But Gerard’s dreams growl, smelling of musk and green forests. He feels like he’s drowning, slowly. There’s nothing about his life that feels right.

And he’s there, thinking about forests and fur, with the water speeding past. Clenching a paper cup as if it’s a lifeline, wind in his hair, the grey-white sky trying to blue itself above him.

 _At the time, he could care less about the sky. Now he can’t help but look and categorize the shifting color._

The mutter of voices around him turns to cries and pointing fingers. Gerard frowns, and looks up.

It’s like reading a comic panel.

 _A plane, alone in the sky._

 _Building._

 _Collision._

 _Smoke plumes carrying shock up, up._

 _Second collision._

 _[And was there a delay? He can’t tell, his mind too busy framing everything in thick black.]  
Smoke breaks into rumbling as the first tower collapses. _

_Collapses into dust.  
Opaque plumage, spreading, spreading like the screams around him, like the coffee dropped and pooling at his feet. _

Gerard forgets how to breathe for a moment.

And then, still shocked and staring, he shifts. The decision happens. He doesn’t step off the ferry, stays free of the stampede. Gerard turns back, deciding to change, to gather a band to salvage as much as he can from the wreckage of the world. Fear and steel-girded determination push back the growling dark. Other things are more important. The world is more important.

But the growling dark never leaves him. He remains caught, between sky and water. This is what his dreams tell him over and over, the farther he gets from memory. Gerard used to be able to push that darkness beneath the iron waters, reflection of towers falling talisman enough to hold unrest at bay.

These days though… he can’t hold to personalized disasters. Catastrophes can’t save him. THAT is the message his dreams give him, over and over, underscored with a growing throaty rumble, the warning growl of an animal. Strip away self-medication, and Gerard’s left with the bay and what roils beneath its waters. He still doesn’t know how to address that –but he knows he can’t look away anymore.  
~~~


End file.
